


these wishful eyes of ours

by PerfectSilence (hitomishiga)



Category: Kagerou Project, Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Angst, F/F, Gen, KagePro AU, Past Character Death, may contain oriko and kazumi in future chapters, possible homumado, possible kyouhomu
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-17
Updated: 2015-05-17
Packaged: 2018-03-30 23:33:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3956068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hitomishiga/pseuds/PerfectSilence
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's something not-quite-right in Mitakihara. There's something not-quite-right about August 15, either. Akemi Homura found this out the hard way, and now she's alone.</p>
<p>Homura, Kyouko, Sayaka, Mami, Nagisa. Five girls, five regrets, five red eyes. Five ways to save the world.</p>
<p>(In which, instead of contracts, the puella magi found themselves in the Daze, and Homura is as enigmatic as ever)</p>
            </blockquote>





	these wishful eyes of ours

**Author's Note:**

> alright alright dont judge me but this is a thing. suspend your disbelief, its not like kagepro OR pmmm its a magic mixture and maybe i'll continue it.

Again.  
  
August 15.  
  
Again.  
  
Would the day ever end? Would the night ever come?  
  
Would they ever live? That stupid smiling cat knows something else, watches them die again and again.  
  
Again.  
  
How long, Homura wonders, how long have they been playing this game? How long has she been a victim of fate’s own deathly wheel, how long has this punishment been occurring and recurring and again and again and again and again and again andagainandagain.  
  
“I want to save you.”  
  
She doesn’t  
  
“I want to be strong enough to save you.”  
  
She isn’t.  
  
“I want to try again.”  
  
She does.  
  
*  
  
“Whatcha thinking about?”  
  
Kyouko, rude as always. Always. Constant. It’s grounding.  
  
“Nothing.”  
  
“Aw, whatever. Nobody even needs your stuck-up attitude anyway.”  
  
And she’s gone, again, back inside. Homura’s left perched by the rail, precariously balanced over the causeway. It’s night, so the passing cars and streetlights illuminate what would otherwise be a stark black.  
  
So this is her try again, she thinks. Isn’t she dead, didn’t she die? Didn’t they all die, technically, they’re all dead. A mockery of humanity. _Shells._  
  
Sayaka’s a fool, if she thinks they’re heroes. Mami’s a fool, if she thinks they could use these powers for the good of anyone. Homura is a fool for hoping to catch a glimpse of ‘her’ again.  
  
Get it right, Akemi. Do something right for a change. She pinches at her skin, her eyes itch, everything’s going fuzzy again. Sometimes she can remember things but now is not the time for that, not the time.  
  
She must have been standing there for an awful long time, because suddenly Kyouko’s right over her shoulder again, all cocky arrogance and a grin through a stick of pocky. How much of it is real, how much of it is hidden by those red eyes?  
  
“You… You alright?” Kyouko’s voice is soft. Almost. She was silent for too long, damn.  
  
“Fine.” Her voice is sharp as steel, it grates on the nerves as much as any nightmare.  
  
“Huh.”  
  
The traffic continues, heedless. Time goes on. It goes on. Kyouko swings her legs over the rail and sits on it, then takes out her box of pocky. There’s a silent, rejected offer in that moment of eye contact. Kyouko’s breathing is very loud.  
  
“Do you ever think about…?” She never finishes the sentence. It doesn’t need finishing. Everyone knows, everyone knows the haze, the going back again and again, everyone knows the bitter taste of victory. How it feels to survive.  
  
“… It’s hard.”  
  
_To survive alone._  
  
“I do.” Kyouko tilts back her head, and grins as if they’ve been through the same thing. They haven’t they haven’t. “It’s a little fuzzy.”  
  
“Hm.”  
  
It’s not fuzzy for Homura at all, not at all, she never can remember every excruciating detail from every single timeline doomed to fail.  
  
_Can you remember her?_  
  
“You know,” Kyouko is saying, “I always thought it was my fault. It had to be. It’s… funny how much I can remember. A fire, you know? And then the big, mouth-thing…”  
  
Of course.  
  
“I know.” Homura’s heard this before. Once or twice, maybe more. “The haze.”  
  
“Yeah.” Kyouko barks out a forced laugh and bites so hard through her pocky stick that half of it falls down, down to the road, to its inevitable death.  
  
Splat.  
  
“Anyway, the point was,” she gets out another pocky stick to chew on, a replacement. “The point was, it wasn’t. None of this was our fault, y’know. Sayaka, _Mami_ , heck, even the kid. We- y’know.”  
  
Homura clicks her tongue, hears it echo. “I know.”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
A car honks obnoxiously as it hoons down the causeway. Stars twinkle. Inside, there’s a faint but distinct clatter of dishes. Everything is as it should be. Just as it should be.  
  
“… ‘s there someone you’re missing?”  
  
Homura turns with such force; her hair gets caught in her eyes. Was that a hint of understanding and sympathy in Kyouko’s voice, or was that an illusion? A hope?  
  
How rare, she thinks. How rare.  
  
“How critically perceptive.” She replies, dry, cynical, terse as always. Kyouko puts her hands up defensively and slides off the rail, edging closer.  
  
“Well it’s pretty fricken obvious you’re moping about something. Someone.” Suddenly, Kyouko is close, too close, Homura can see her red eyes glowing in the starlight. What’s she doing this time? “Haze stuff?”  
  
It’s squirm-inducing, uncomfortable, and Kyouko’s up so close she can probably see right through the lie. “Not at all.” The partial lie. “Not at all.”  
  
Kyouko backs off after a tense moment. Homura feels her chest unconstrict. She knows her lie is poor, she knows that everyone knows better, but the less questions they ask, the better off they’ll be.  
  
And it hurts.  
  
“Hey-“ Kyouko’s at the doorway, looking over her shoulder as if Homura was a mere afterthought, “what _is_ your eye power, anyway?”  
  
She almost laughs, then. To think, that they don’t know this time round. To think they have no idea what she puts herself through for their sake… ~~For Madoka’s sake.~~  
  
Instead, Homura turns around slowly, as if she were one of Kyouko’s illusions and would break with the slightest contact. “You’ll find out one day.”  
  
“I hate how cryptic you are sometimes, you got that?” Kyouko grumbles away, something about learning to speak like a real person. And she's gone, again, and Homura is alone, again.

Again.  
  
Homura just wishes she is wrong, when she says that. But she knows wishes only backfire, and hope is a waste of time she can’t afford.

**Author's Note:**

> rewinding eyes - the ability to go back to a clear memory, and try again.
> 
> all the magi now have eye powers instead of contracts, guess who they were partnered with in the daze, kyubey is involved somehow. Of course there's gotta be an azami surrogate to instigate this hm i wonder.


End file.
